Explore the Site
Main Hall
The Main Hall has a square layout, three bays wide (7.05 meters) and three bays deep (7.03 m), with a single-eave hip-gable roof. The central bay is significantly wider, while the side bays are only half its width — an extremely rare layout found among the extant early Chinese buildings.
The base is built of flat stones, with no front platform. The column bases are molded in the shape of an overturned basin, and the tops of the columns feature rounded and softened entasis. The columns are connected horizontally by lintels without pupaifang architrave plates, and the ends of the lintels do not protrude beyond the columns. The principal bearing block of the bracket set rests directly on the column tops.
The bracket sets above the columns are simple, featuring a jutting arm projecting from the ludou (the principal bearing block in the bracket set), with a horizontal intermediary timber member on the cantilever arm supporting the eaves-raising purlin, and without a lead bracket arm or decorative head. This style of doukou tiao (a type of column-top bracket set) described in Yingzao Fashi (Building Standards) of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) is an extremely rare surviving example in China. Though the exact founding date of the temple is uncertain, it is considered the earliest surviving hall of the Tiantai school of Buddhism in China.